Canada is the putative favourite but the Americans have had the best results in the tournament so far. The winner with be showered with praise. The loser with be taunted and booed until my throat is sore!

Where are all of you doubters now? Oh ya, you're the same guys commenting "I knew Canada would win". And the comments about Kunitz? Played a pretty good game and got robbed twice. For all of you who doubted the coaching staff and player selections, this one's for you.

Fantastic, defense wins championships. The Americans probably thought they could pot a few. Hell no, they never faced a d like the Canadians and when the going go tough guys like Backes and Kessel got going. I've always been a Price hater because of his playoff record but he's been darn good. Very solid, he's making the big saves when needed.

You know, the American team will be pretty frightening in a few years.. Eichel (maybe?) and Galchenyuk centering the top two lines, Trouba and Jones anchoring the D. John Gibson in net?

Who boy.

And the Canadian team won't be? Or the Swedes? Finland?
Heck, have you seen Switzerland lately?

I believe that teams are going to get stronger, some will get weaker, but I do not see a clear indication that the US will suddenly become more fearsome. They already are an incredibly strong team, and will continue to be so. The Canadian team will also be very strong.

uh. That's not what I'm doing. If Canada lost, I wouldn't be blaming it on the selection of Kunitz. Canada is good and deep enough that one player doesn't cost the win.

But that doesn't change the fact that he shouldn't be on the team. He is in no way one of the 14 best Canadian forwards.

It's sort of like how no matter how many games the Flames win, it doesn't justify Westgarth's position on the roster. Not that Kunitz is as useless as Westgarth.

Let's look into this actually, because I think Kunitz was a good selection on his own merits, and not just because he plays with Crosby.

I went to behindthenet, set it to show all left-wingers, sorted, and threw out the non-Canucks to see how Kunitz ranked in a few areas. P/60 is points a player generates per 60 minutes of TOI, which is pretty self-explanatory. Corsi On is an absolute measure of on-ice possession while Corsi Rel gives an idea of how the player improves the possession rates of his team. A guy with great Corsi On but negative Corsi Rel is probably being carried by his team-mates. A guy with low (perhaps even negative) Corsi On and high Corsi Rel is carrying bad team-mates. A guy with both low Corsi On and low Corsi Rel is a crappier than average possession player on a team with crappy possession.

*Newbury, Terry, and Cunningham are AHL'ers with very small NHL sample sizes and should be ignored.
**Matt Fraser is a sheltered rookie, and should be ignored as well.

Notice how there isn't a lot of overlap in the guys above Kunitz. In terms of point generation combined with posession, he's pretty much tops. In terms of relative Corsi, Kunitz is the best natural LW'er out there. Jamie Benn, for example, does produce significantly more points, but his possession is well below Kunitz's. Taylor Hall's Corsi On and Corsi Rel are both in the negative indicating he's a below average possession player even by the lowly standards of the Oilers, which is no doubt why he was passed over. Now, I'm probably missing a lot of good players that aren't listed by behindthenet as LW's, like two of the guys who actually made the team and are playing LW:

-Patric Marleau generates 2.34 ppg to Kunitz's 2.33. Marleau's Corsi On is slightly higher and his Corsi Rel is substantially lower.
-Matt Duchene generates 2.48 ppg, but his Corsi On and Corsi Rel are both inferior to Kunitz's.

To sum up, Kunitz offers a truly rare complete package of point generation and possession. You might argue that Crosby inflates his numbers, but Kunitz is far from the only forward on this list who plays with excellent line-mates. The stats suggest Kunitz deserves his spot, not just on Team Canada, but in Team Canada's Top 6. Anyone still pining for Taylor Hall is an idiot.

Heh. Judging from the trashes there is a fair bit of irrational hatred for Kunitz. Some apparently assume he must be bad since he was undrafted and plays with Crosby. However, his average points/season is 2 pts lower in Pittsburgh than it was in Anaheim. He's no Jari Kurri, but he's likely underrated in a similar way because he plays with one of the greats.

Selanne scored 2 goals in the final, bronze-winning game of his sixth Olympics. Incredible. The Americans, the big offensive juggernaut of the games, have been shut-out for 6 straight periods in the semi-finals and the bronze-medal match. All that remains is Canada vs Sweden!

USA played well up until Selanne scored his goal in the second. Remember, Finland was the one team that went to OT against Canada and they had a day off while the US team played Canada to boot. The second goal came 11 seconds later in a lapse like we're all too used to seeing from the Flames. After that, USA sort of fell apart. They let their frustration get the better of them, starting taking dumb, selfish penalties, and the Finn's took advantage of them. The next few goals for the Finn's were all scored on the power-play. Yeah, it's hard being shut out for 4, 5, and then 6 periods in less than 24 hours, but with a little more discipline the US team would have been in that game to the end.

That being said, it was great to see Selanne score 2 goals in what has got to be his final Olympic appearance (Seriously, how many times has that been said before?). The Finn's were all feeding him pucks like mad to get him the hat-trick, but he stuck to short-shifts even during powerplays and made plenty of passing plays himself. It was a classy, composed, unselfish performance. The better team won.